Emerging media from the borderlands of Jewish identity

Final Representation

My sister sent from London another of my grandmother Susi’s writings, from Susi’s personal journal. This was upon the same subject: her mother, blood-father Paul and presumed father Alfred. Susi says how she remembers coming across the second journal: it was some time after Alfred’s death and Leonard, returning from a visit in Los Angeles with Mitzi, brought it to her. Thinking it was her mother’s, she put it away. Mitzi’s journal excludes any mention of Paul, and Susi writes, “I don’t know how she could have left him out of it in this cruel way. Who was she lying to? Me, an unborn child?” Paul’s journal describes Mitzi with affection, and about one of the book’s parts Susi says, “Throughout the whole story runs a pathetic refrain concerning her life in Brno from which he was excluded.”

Impressions that last after death—that can be re-adopted in cycles and by future generations—can be so easily sculpted. Here, so much is left out; Mitzi’s journal covers nothing of her child’s father, and she presents her daughter with slanted information. What the combined journals leave is confusing—with the content Mitzi chose to bequeath. I suppose it would have played much differently if Susi had read Paul’s journal when Mitzi was still alive. But as it was, there was no dialogue beyond her written pages. Susi herself chose to leave her family with much to understand her with—insights into her thoughts that perhaps none of us had known. What she does not display remains with her, private.

HALF-REMEMBERED STORIES

In July 2010, we will be rolling out a multi-media exhibition about lost people, lost places, and the quest to reclaim lost memory. In preparation for this exhibit, we've invited 16 young Jews, ages 15 to 25, to blog.